


The Sire Thing: Vampire Society in the Barbverse

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Meta, Vampires, barbverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2039349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vampire social interaction in the Barbverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sire Thing: Vampire Society in the Barbverse

While any vampire can sire a new vampire, many young vampires lack the self-control necessary, and end up draining the victim too deeply before giving them their own blood. Many masters discourage indiscriminate siring, as vampires can very quickly out-breed their food supply by siring recklessly. The wise master sires only when s/he has a specific purpose for his/her get, and often kills the fledglings off when they're no longer necessary, unless they've demonstrated outstanding qualities.

There is little indication that the age of the sire has any effect on the strength or power of the resulting get, but there is some indication that some vampire bloodlines result in fledglings drunk on bloodlust, possibly because the demon is more ascendant in them. However, so little research has been done on the subject that it's impossible to tell for certain what any given get will be like, and the biggest determinant of a vampire's personality is generally the personality of its human host body.

I use 'get' to mean 'vampiric offspring.' As far as I know, there isn't any canonical Buffyverse term for that; Angelus and Darla have referred to their descendants as 'boy' or 'girl' on occasion, but there's no way of telling if these terms are have some special vampy meaning or are simply a common form of address to someone they consider their inferior in age and social standing. I started using 'get' in "A Raising In The Sun," because there are times when it becomes unbearably clumsy trying to write around the lack of a term for 'person I have sired,' and I can't stand 'childe.' 'Childe' was imported from the Vampire: The Masquerade roleplaying game, and has a freight of connotations that aren't my cuppa. 'Get' was archaic enough to match 'sire' in tone, and didn't have any fannish associations at all so far as I knew. (I've seen a few other writers use it since I started, and I'm not sure if they picked it up from me or came up with it on their own, but if it someday gives 'childe' a run for its money in Buffyverse fanon, I'll die happy. ) 

My take on the various terms is that sire and get denote familial relationships, and that master and minion denote social relationships. I sometimes use 'fledgling' to mean 'young or inexperienced vampire,' but for me it has no specific meaning beyond that. (I think that term originated with Anne Rice, but it's been used in enough other vampire mythologies that I feel that it's in the public domain.) A lot of fan writers assume there's some kind of qualitative difference between 'childe' and 'minion'--some special process of turning that makes a childe smarter, or capable of becoming a master. I'm not positive if this is an import from another vampire mythology or a pure Buffy-fanon invention, but I don't think there's any evidence in the show's canon to support it, and I don't use it. Any difference between one vampire and the next, so far as I'm concerned, is due to the differences in the personality, self-control, and smarts of the human they were before death. There is some canonical evidence for a special emotional bond between sire and sired. I don't see it as anywhere near as overwhelmingly strong or deterministic as fanon sometimes makes it out to be. Vampires can and do defy, abandon, ignore, and even kill their sires, although this may bear a certain amount of social stigma (cf. Angel killing Darla, Spike threatening to kill Dru for Buffy, Darla leaving the Master for Angel).

As far as the social relationships go, Master's been used three times in canon. The Master, of course, and Mr. Trick referred to Kaikistos as Master once. Doug's pyramid scam speech from "Disharmony" promised his followers that "You each have it in you to be, not just any vampire...but a master. That's right. A master of your own destiny." There was also an oblique reference in "School Hard" to the effect that the person who killed the Slayer would take the Master's place. (Which is odd considering that the Anointed One was his chosen heir, but never mind.) My assumption based on this stuff is that 'master' can mean a particularly old and powerful vampire, and/or the vampire who's the boss of a certain territory. Any vampire who's strong, charismatic, or clever enough to get other vamps to follow them can call themselves a master. Any vampire of a certain age and power level (possibly when they start looking all demony all the time?) is called Master whether or not they own any territory. And any vampire serving another vampire is a minion, regardless of age or who sired whom. 

My take on vampire society is considerably more anarchic than many fan writers' seems to be--I tend to think that the Master's court was the exception rather than the rule. Going by what we see on the show, most vampires live in small family/pack units (the Fanged Four, Sunday's gang, Harmony's gang, James & Elizabeth's gang, Spike & Dru, etc.) While there are certainly alpha vamps ('masters') in any given group, I don't think there's any canonical basis to assume that the elaborate pseudo-feudal rituals that the Master insisted upon are used widely outside his sphere of influence. So what I go with is:

Families: Groups consisting of one older vampire and his/her get, with the occasional addition of an unrelated sexual partner. Leadership is more fluid than in a clan or a gang, though major decisions generally revert to the eldest member. Families admit new members rarely, either by siring or adoption, and seldom number more than five or six vampires. Families tend to split apart into smaller groups or to consolidate into a gang under a single leader once a certain critical mass is reached. Families are often migratory. The Fanged Four is an example of a family. 

Gangs: A group of vampires organized under the authority of a single vampire who may or may not claim the title of master. Gangs are usually larger than families, containing up to a dozen vampires. Gangs often contain related vampires, but may be composed of unrelated individuals. Gangs actively recruit and sire new members, often maintaining 'slots' for fledglings sired solely as cannon fodder. Gangs usually stake out and defend a set territory – a neighborhood or sometimes even an entire small town – and maintain it as their own hunting grounds. Gangs often clash with one another over territory and status. Sunday's group is an example of a gang, as is Whip's stable of prostitutes.

Clans: Two or more gangs and/or families, generally related by bloodline, whose leaders answer to the same master. Clans are the largest vampire social unit, numbering dozens or even hundreds of vampires. Clans are rare; there are probably no more than a dozen in the world, and they tend to last only as long as the Master who unites them, although there have been cases of a vampire from the original Master's bloodline inheriting or reviving a clan. Clans generally spread out over several cities. Clans generally have some larger uniting purpose or tradition than the simple defense of territory. The Order of Aurelius is an example of a vampire clan.

It's true that any group of aggressive creatures which doesn't develop an elaborate code for dealing with internal conflicts is doomed to tear itself apart--and I think that's exactly what happens to most vampire groups. The major check upon the vampire population, as I see it, is not the Slayer, but other vampires. I see vamp society as a very few large stable groups like the Master's, centered around one long-lived and influential vampire; a lot of small groups loosely bound by ties of kinship or passion; and a sea of loners, mostly abandoned get who serve as distractions for the Slayer and cannon fodder for the older, smarter vamps and any demon who cares to hire them. 

Being part of a group is advantageous to the individual vampire. There's safety, and better hunting, in numbers. However, vampires are totally selfish and self-willed creatures, and it's the rare vamp who can see past their own immediate pleasure to long-term group success and consistently follow orders, and an even rarer vamp who can organize and command passels of quarrelsome demons efficiently. In D&D terms, my vampires are more often chaotic evil than lawful evil. Thus the groups are constantly breaking up and reforming--e.g. James and Elizabeth will hang out with Darla and Angelus for awhile, then have a spat and go their separate ways. Each quasi-stable group has its own set of internal rules, based on the whims of the vampire who founded it, but as large organized groups virtually never survive the death of the charismatic individual vampire who founded and controlled them, there are very few 'international' customs in vampire society, and those that exist are very much subject to local interpretation. 

There's also quite a lot of social mobility in my vampire world. Subordinate vampires in a group are constantly jockeying for position among themselves, or plotting to overthrow their superiors. A minion may submit to a stronger vampire, but there's nothing to prevent them from trying to take their master down at a later, more propitious time--i.e. submission is a social rather than a biological imperative. (cf. Spike taking over the Annoying One's gang.) Of course not all vamps are ambitious--like most humans, many are perfectly content to take orders all their unlives, or live on their own. An intelligent, reliable minion is worth its weight in gold for the master with enough self-control to refrain from ripping its head off in a fit of pique.


End file.
